


Harvest Dawn

by LadyHM2015 (LadyMustard)



Series: The King Trilogy [1]
Category: Harvest Moon, Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, Harvest Moon: Animal Parade, Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town
Genre: Blood and Violence, Canonical Character Death, Elemental Magic, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Lemon, Magic-Users, Minor Character Death, Minor Original Character(s), Multi, Pre-Series, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 07:34:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3319286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyMustard/pseuds/LadyHM2015
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is the age before the Goddesses and humanity has created paradise . A great evil rises up from the good intentions of a powerful wizard and mankind finds itself fighting for survival.  Romance buds in the dawn of the apocalypse  when Akari, the granddaughter of Grey, finds herself whisked away out of Mineral Town and into the afterlife where she meets the tall, red haired blacksmith that will turn not only her life but the entire world upside down.   A new hope is born in the ashes of the old world: This is the story of the world before Harvest Moon. </p>
<p>Part 1 of 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> For nearly fifteen years, I’ve been fascinated by the magical world presented in the Harvest Moon games. I was entranced by the simple beauty of Mineral Town, and was further engrossed with each new game I played. I’ve put hundreds of hours of playing into the franchise, and countless more hours went into research for this fanfiction. 
> 
> This story is set in a time long before the Harvest Goddesses and mighty Harvest King. This is the story before the games. It is with the end of one world that another begins… and this is the tale of the world that ended in order to create a place where Harvest Sprites dance, war doesn't exist and the daughter of a lowly farmer can change the world. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and please enjoy.

Mankind found itself at the pinnacle of its growth, a golden age of humanity. Their society was one that blended nature, technology and magic. All of the people of this age were born with a spirit made of one of the five elements of nature and could use it at will. Magic was commonplace and if you knew where to look, you could see it everywhere: 

A Fire user reheating their coffee with the tap of a finger while reading a book. 

A person with the power of Heart using telekenesis to toss a scrap of trash into a matter recycle bin. 

The refreshing chill in the air as a Water user entered a hot, stuffy room.

The entire world was divided into two regions: the City... and everything else. The world’s only city was a sprawling pinnacle of Magitech, in a massive dome hundreds of miles wide deep under the sea. Every convenience you ever wanted was there at your fingertips. Food, communicators, an entire alternate reality if you wished it! Everything was a panel swipe away. There were Universities for every study imaginable and entire city blocks dedicated to the sole purpose of entertainment.

There were people, however, that found a life of convenience empty. They left for the long abandoned surface, cutting farms and villages out of wilderness, living in peace with the land and using their magic to nourish it. With each generation, the divide between the surface world and the underwater city grew a bit further, but they were always aware of one another... each side eager for snippets of news from the other to spice up an otherwise boring day. City-goers would visit the surface in the same way that one might visit a renaissance fair. For land-goers, the city was invaluable for it's universities and halls of research.

For centuries, this was how people lived. That was until, one day, all news from the underwater City completely stopped. Visitors stopped arriving. Communications went silent. Letters never made it to their intended recipients. When the people of the land went to investigate, they found nothing but empty ocean. It's doors had sealed themselves closed and collapsed into the sea, leaving nothing but silence and a mystery. 

The years slipped by and still not a word was heard. In time, the silence grew unsettling and rumors began to fly, each more ominous than the last. There was a man, rumored to have been drunk at the time, that claimed a single radio transmission escaped the lock-down the night the doors collapsed. Four words, garbled and twisted with static and cut off by screams: 

"The Shadows are Coming." 


	2. The Beginning of the End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Picking this story up after a long time of not working on it. It's been a while, so I wonder whether or not there are still people interested in reading this, but I'll be updating it none-the-less. 
> 
> Finished re-writing the prologue and I'm working on fixing up chapter 1. I think that I'm going to remove the "needed work" chapters for now. 
> 
> Any and all criticisms/comments are appreciated. It's a work in progress. ^o^ 
> 
> For those that still care, thanks for reading!

 

 _I'm breaking in, shaping up,_  
_then checking out..._  
 _This is it, the apocalypse._

_Imagine Dragons, Radioactive_

Waffle Island (the age before the gods)

It was a beautiful, peaceful morning in Harmonica Town. It was a tiny village on a self-sustaining little island tucked far out to sea, hundreds of miles from the nearest entrance to the underwater city that made up the center of the world. Those that actually cared about the city hadn’t heard a thing from there in over three years. The quarantine had been a thing of mystery to the folks living on land… but with most of the technology being down there, there was very little that could be done to investigate. Every single door was locked up tight.

Of course, that was for the individuals that actually cared about the city. For many that lived above ground, there were several generations separating them from the people there. There might’ve been a rumor or two that something was wrong but nothing to cause a panic. The gates would re-open eventually. They always did.

So the people of the world… and Waffle Island… went on with their lives.

People like Ose. 

The old man was particularly busy that day. It was still very early, but he was hard at work in front of the forge. He was a giant of a man, nearly seven feet tall and thick with both muscle and a healthy layer of pudge. His hair had long since gone completely white, and was now shaved close to his head. His piercing grey eyes sparkled in a face wrinkled with time as he finished the hatchet he was working on. It was only then that he paused to stretch.

His face itched. He yawned and scratched his cheek, the rasp of whiskers under his nails loud in the quiet of the shop.  He forgot to remove them that morning in the rush to finish the hatchet that now only needed a layer of oil to bring it to a shine.  He pressed his work –scarred palms to his face and with a hiss of fire magic, the beginnings of a beard fell from his face in a cloud of ash.

_Just in time._

The small silver bell above the door rang as a customer, a brown haired middle aged farmer with dark eyes, came in with a pair of rowdy boys in tow. They were both spitting images of their father, right down do the dirt smeared on their tanned faces and the manure encrusted on their little rubber boots.

“Ah, Jack! Just in time!” Ose called out. He leaned over the counter to grin widely at the boys. “And who do we have here?”

"Grandpa!!" they bellowed, running behind the counter to tackle his legs. Nearly all the adults in the tiny country village affectionately called him 'Uncle', with most of the younger children calling him ‘gramps’ or ‘grandpa’. He had no kids of his own, but it never stopped him from spoiling any child that walked through the smithy door.

He was notorious for it.

"Well hello there!” He boomed. “It's been forever since I've seen you. You've gotten so big!"

He knelt down and gathered both of them into his arms, giving them a big hug. His knees protested at the movement, but he wasn’t about to let his old legs dissuade him from hugging the little tykes. With a laugh, he lifted them clear off the floor, making them squeal.

"You say that every time you see us!" One of them said, squirming free from his hug.

“Haha!! That’s because it's true! I remember when you were just a little bitty baby. Both of you!!” 

"Try not to spoil them too much,” the farmer laughed. “I can already see you reaching for that blasted treat bin of yours.”

"Now, now… let me have my fun."  He dismissed the man’s arguments with a wave of his hand as he reached behind the counter and pulled out a small candy bowl with a wink at the two boys. They spent nearly a minute pawing through the bowl, looking for their favorite flavors. He waited patiently, his heart warming as they smiled brightly and began eagerly unwrapping the treats.

The eldest, Daniel, elbowed him lightly. “Hey Grandpa, can you do the thing with the fire?”

“What thing?”

“YOU KNOW!!” Daniel lowered his voice to a whisper. “The thing with the dragon! Matt hasn’t seen it yet. ”

“Aaah. That.” Ose glanced over at Jack who just rolled his eyes. “Alright. Here… hand over your wrappers.”  

“AWESOME!! Watch this Matt! It’s so cool!”

He held out his hand and they set the wrappers on his palm, their eyes wide as he created a tiny dragon out of flame. Ose focused hard and the little dragon walked harmlessly over his fire-proof skin to the bits of paper and snapped them up, the smoke from burning paper billowing out of its nose. The creature snapped its little jaws at the boys, creating little sparks before flying out the door.

The boys chased after it with a whoop, candy in hand.

“Hey! What do you say?” Their father called out after them.

“Thanks Gramps!!” They shouted in unison before running out to the porch to eat their treats. With a hand on the counter and a hearty groan, Ose managed to get himself back up again.

“You notice how it’s always ‘Grandpa’ when they ask for candy and it changes to ‘Gramps’ after they get what they want?” Ose chuckled. “Little stinkers…”

“You have no idea.”

Ose tucked the candy bowl back under the counter and set the finished hatchet out for Jack to inspect before ringing up the order. The man examined it closely, smiling. “Perfect, as usual. Thanks so much for finishing this so quickly. Alex has been asking for his own hatchet for a while now.”

“No problem.” Ose shook his head, glancing out the door. “They really do grow up so quickly. It seems like only yesterday that your eldest was no bigger than those two. I miss seeing him around.”  

“I think Alex has taken a liking to Kathy’s daughter… that pretty one with the blond hair.” Jack snapped his fingers as he tried to remember her name.  

Ose paused at the register as he thought. “Lily, I think.”  There were so many kids in the village now that it was hard to keep track of them all. Not that he complained. No children made for a very dull and boring village in his opinion.

 “That’s her, Lily.” the man exclaimed.  “I wouldn’t feel too bad, Uncle. Even I don’t see him as much lately.” The man chuckled as he wrapped the axe carefully and slipped it into his bag. He started to reach for his pocket to pay, but Ose waved it off. With quite a bit of bickering back and forth, Ose convinced Jack to keep his money.

 “Fine then, you stubborn old bastard.” Jack tucked his wallet back into his pocket with a huff. “Which reminds me, got any plans for the day?”

“Nothing set in stone yet. I know one thing; it is way too nice of a day to be inside.”  

“Why don’t you stop by our place for dinner tonight then? As repayment for the hatchet! The boys love you and the missus would love the chance to cook dinner in peace for once.”

“You know I never turn down home cooking! Especially Renee’s.” Ose chuckled, patting his stomach. “You’re a lucky man. In the two hundred and fifty three years I’ve been on this earth, I’ve never met someone that cooks as well as her.”

“It’s for the best. I’m a TERRIBLE cook. At least my earth magic keeps the kitchen well stocked with ingredients.” Jack admitted sheepishly. “Anyway, I’ll let her know that we’re expecting guests. If you’re lucky, she’ll throw on the big pot and we’ll send you home with plenty of leftovers. Feel free to stop by early if you want to chat!”

“I’ll keep it in mind Jack. Take care.”

Silence fell over the shop after the customer left, the crackling of the coals and the ticking of the clock on the wall the only sounds left to be heard. The order bin on the counter was empty. He let out a heavy sigh as weariness dragged on his limbs. The “trick” with the fire dragon took a lot more out of him than he thought.

He lumbered through the house to his bedroom to change. Every inch of wall and open space of shelf in the narrow hallway was filled with photos in ancient frames. What space was left was taken up with presents from his many “grandchildren”:  dried flowers, colored stones and hand-drawn pictures.

His bedroom was a sobering compared to the hallway leading to it. His bed took up most of the space and despite how large and fluffy the comforter was, it always felt cold to him. The left side of the bed dipped deep from years of sleeping on the same side out of habit, while the other side was untouched. Every now and again, he felt a pang of regret. He could’ve settled down.  He could’ve had a wife…

He shoved the thought out of his head and yanked his “nice” shirt out of the dresser. He didn’t have a wife, but he certainly had a family. Two hundred and fifty was far too old to be clinging to regrets like that.

He poured himself a cup of coffee on his way to the front porch. His favorite rocking chair was like everything else in his house, large and made of thick, sturdy wood. A small side table was set up next to it, with the morning newspaper folded up and waiting for him. The delivery boy knew he preferred to read his paper out on the porch, so the boy got in the habit of leaving it on the table for him. He sunk into the chair and opened the paper.

The weather was perfect for reading that day. The spring morning air smelled crisp and had the bite of a light chill, but the fire magic coursing through his veins made him impervious to the cold. After he finished, he folded it up, tossed it into a nearby recycle bin and leaned back in the chair, making it creak loudly. He stretched his leg out, giving his throbbing knees a chance to rest. For a while, he sat and watched the world from his little porch.

It really _was_ too nice of a day to be stuck inside.

The dirt path running past his house was pitted with potholes and massive ruts from the wheels of carts. Green grass thick with wild flowers lined the roadside, gradually thinning as the open grass changed into thick woodlands. As he rocked quietly, the woods came alive around him. Birds flitted closer and closer, eventually bouncing along the edge of the porch only a few feet from him. As more time passed, a small family of deer slipped from the trees to pick at the fresh greens on the road side.

Just as he was about to fall asleep, he was jolted back to alertness as the animals in front of his house bolted. He looked around for what might’ve spooked them, and seeing nothing, leaned back into his chair.  

Odd.

A second later, a violent tremor shook the smithy. His empty coffee cup fell off the side table and smashed into bits. Inside the house he could hear things crashing to the floor. He didn’t bother getting up from his chair, knowing that he’d probably fall and break his leg if he tried to stand.  With a lurch and thunderous rumbling underground, it was over.

His heart raced, confusion and shock freezing him to the chair.

Earthquakes weren’t something that happened on Waffle Island. They just… didn’t.

Sometimes if a person with earth magic got a bit too excited, they could trigger a very small earthquake. THAT was a lot stronger than what 98% of Earth users could create, let alone what anyone living on the island could do.

He felt it in his gut. Something was wrong.

Terribly, terribly wrong.


End file.
